Quarter-million NJ residents sign up, re-enroll in Obamacare

Nearly 253,000 New Jersey residents have enrolled for coverage in the second year of the federal health insurance marketplace.

About 472,000 Pennsylvania residents and nearly 25,000 in Delaware selected a plan or were automatically enrolled. Nationwide, 11.4 million people signed up or were automatically re-enrolled, said Kevin Counihan CEO of the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.

“We’re pleased with how this year has gone,” he said.

At the same time, Counihan said, federal officials recognize there is room for improvement

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“No one is waving the flag by saying that we’re declaring victory or anything,” he said. “We’re still looking for ways that we can improve our operations and improve our outreach, make it easier and simpler for people to understand plan designs.”

While the open enrollment period ended Feb.15, uninsured residents who started the signup process and were unable to finish the application have a grace period until Sunday to complete it.

Looking forward, Counihan is anticipating changes to make it easier to select a plan during the next enrollment period in the fall.

“The open enrollment next year is going to be better than the one this year,” he said. “We often say that this is really a five- year implementation. It takes time to implement something that’s complicated and has a lot of moving pieces and this certainly does.”

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